Страница 28 из 42
In the projector room once again, I faced Zach. “So, where were we?”
He put up his hands. “Look, you’ve got a lot going on, maybe we should deal with this another day.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” I said. “It’s now or never. I don’t have time for it now, but I’m not going to make time for it any other day.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’ve said everything I came to say. I just wanted you to know what he’s like.”
I smirked. “Yes, and you’re clearly the moral authority when it comes to relationships.”
“Zach, come on, I’ve apologized and-”
My phone beeped with a text message. I tried not to release the string of profanity that was on the tip of my tongue. Fuck, would everyone just give me five goddamned seconds today? Please?
“I should let you go,” Jake said. His tone no longer carried that pitiful woe-is-me bid for sympathy. Instead, some of his usual unrepentant smugness crept in. When I looked at him, his narrowed eyes echoed that irritating smugness.
I eyed him. My desire to dig a little deeper, to find out what exactly I was missing in this conversation, was overwhelmed by my desire to get him out of here so I could call Nathan back.
“Okay,” I said, still regarding him suspiciously. I gestured toward the door. “I guess that’s it, then.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all I came to talk about.”
I hesitated, then nodded, and we walked out of the room in silence. All the way down the stairs, I was certain I was missing something. His demeanor had always been tricky to read, but today, he was just…weird.
But I forgot all about it when we stepped out into the sparsely populated lobby and my heart jumped into my throat.
Nathan’s eyes flicked back and forth between Jake and me, his posture and expression both stiffening.
“I’ll see you next time, Zach,” Jake said, loud enough that I was sure Nathan heard him. He clapped my shoulder, keeping his hand there just long enough to cross the line between platonic and not. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
My jaw dropped, but before I could gather my wits and ask him what the fuck he was talking about, he released my shoulder and brushed past Nathan. The temperature in the room plummeted the instant they exchanged a look. Nathan’s expression was as bitter and angry as Jake’s was smug.
Then Jake was gone. Nathan looked at me, and the room stayed cold.
He glanced over his shoulder at the door through which our ex-boyfriend had disappeared, then looked at me, his brow knitted with confusion and his eyes burning with an unspoken accusation.
Through his teeth, he asked, “Do I even want to know what that was all about?”
Chapter Twenty-five
Avoiding Nathan’s accusing glare, I let out an exasperated sigh. A thousand ways to strangle Jake crossed my mind, but there would be time to think about that later. For now, I had some damage control to perform.
“Come on, let’s go in the office,” I said.
He planted his feet and nodded toward the projector-room door. “Prefer not to return to the scene of the crime?”
Anger rose like bile in my throat, and I wasn’t sure who it was directed toward. Probably both of them now. I swallowed it, trying to stay calm. “Or, we can talk in there.” I opened the door, and made an after you gesture.
Neither of us spoke on the way up the stairs. The projector room was still deserted, as I expected, but seemed strangely emptier with the two of us in it now. There was an arm’s length and miles of distance between us as we faced off, and the silence was an unbearable preamble to whatever this was going to be.
He folded his arms across his chest and gestured at the door through which we’d just walked. “So what was that-”
“Nathan, for God’s sake, you know what he’s like,” I said.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “That’s why I’m wondering why he was here with you. Specifically, here with you.” He gestured around the room.
I gritted my teeth. He had a right to be concerned. Once bitten, twice shy, after all. Except the one that bit you took off out of the lobby and left me to sort this out. “Do you trust me?”
He shifted his weight. “Should I?”
I rolled my eyes and barely kept myself from groaning with frustration. “Look, Nathan, he’s fucking with us. Trying to play us against each other. What he said on his way out? It didn’t mean a damned thing.”
“Then what was he doing here? What were you two doing in here?”
“Honestly?” I ran a hand through my hair. “The same fucking thing you and I are doing right now-arguing. About us, about you two, about him and me.” Sighing, I shook my head. “The only reason I brought him in here was to keep it out of sight of my customers and my employees. I wanted to do it privately because I didn’t need them to hear it, not because I was hiding anything from you. I mean, I-” I stopped.
“What?”
I glanced at the clock above the projectors. It was only a quarter past four. Nathan wasn’t supposed to meet me until six. Furrowing my brow, I eyed him. “What are you doing here so early?”
He pursed his lips and shoved a hand in his jacket pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and slid it open. “I came early,” he said, quickly pushing a few keys”, because of this.” He handed me the phone.
On the screen was a text message: Don’t believe me? Suit yourself. J.
I scrolled down, anger churning in my gut as a photo appeared on the screen. It was grainy, barely focused, but unmistakable: The Epidauran’s marquee. Though the lettering was difficult to make out, it was obviously the current feature films. The films I had just put up that morning.
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
“Look at the next photo message,” he said.
I did as he asked and my blood ran cold.
Oh, you pla
The picture was one of me. I was leaning against the projector-room window, my eyes closed and my jaw set. Jake had taken it from the perfect vantage point, sitting in front of me and pointing up. The look on my face-an expression of frustration, I knew-could easily be misconstrued as a look of arousal.
Cursing under my breath, I thrust Nathan’s phone back to him, hoping he’d take it before my fury sent the damned thing flying across the room.
“So you were the one he was texting the whole fucking time.” I ran a hand through my hair, struggling to keep my temper in check.
“You didn’t answer your phone when I called.” The accusation in his tone set my teeth on edge.
I took a long breath through my nose. Nathan wasn’t the object of my anger; more than before, I understood why he was suspicious. “No, I didn’t, you’re right. I heard my phone go off, but I was trying to get rid of him. If you hadn’t been in the lobby when I came down, I was going to call you as soon as he was gone.”
When I met his eyes, skepticism was written all over his face. I wanted to be pissed that he had the nerve to be suspicious of me, but I didn’t envy the position he was in, trying to decide who, if anyone, to trust. Words were one thing, but Jake had played us perfectly and managed to concoct some incriminating photos to go with it.
“Nathan, that’s the God’s honest truth.” I took and released a breath. “There’s nothing more I can say to make you believe me, but there it is.”
He regarded me silently for a long time, seeming to search my face for something. Maybe confirmation, maybe something to betray the fact that I was lying. Since I wasn’t lying, I knew he’d find nothing to indicate that I was, so I held his gaze without flinching.
Eventually, he dropped his gaze, his shoulders slumping slightly as he leaned against the window, just inches from the place I’d stood when that damned photo was taken.